Actions Speak Louder Than Words

In a small village away from society 3 families live secret lives as shape-shifters. It is only as a child decides to run away from home that the families must use their powers that they wished they never had, in order to find the missing child and stop themsleves from being exposed. This story is about loving yourself for who and what you are, and about accepting others as well.

1. To Argue

"Jamie you're not going into the city. I've told you countless times and yet you keep asking! Why won't you do as you're told?"

"Because I want a life!" Jamie screamed shrilly. "You may be satisfied with living in the woods on a big bloody mountain, but I haven't seen anyone for fifteen years besides the eight other morons we share this patch of earth with!"

Barnaby Jarmeson shook his head in defeat as his eyes ran over the moody, selfish fifteen year old that was his son, sort of. Ever since the poor kid's dad had cleared off to Russia, Jamie Dage had gone off the rails. Well, as off the rails as a teenage shapeshifter could get. However, Barnaby had to be thankful. When Jamie was in a mood, instead of organizing a drink and drugs party like most teenagers and rebelling, he just transformed into a wolf and stormed off into the woods for a run. A wolf was Jamie's favourite dog that he could transform into out of the canine catergory that he fell into.

No transforming was another rule that Jamie refused to obey though. The three families situated on the mountain all believed that each transforming gift was stupid, useless and unnatural. Well, it was unnatural, but certainly not stupid or useless. Yet there was nothing anyone could do to make them use their gifts. Jamie, however, had grown wise as to why he and the other shapeshifting families had taken up home away from society and the real world. He found it unfair and couldn't understand why he had been singled out to be stuck with the gift.

As Jamie panted from his outburst, hands on his scrawny hips, a clap of rumbling thunder echoed overhead, and the trees swayed precariously as the wind whipped around their fragile, thorny branches.

"A storm's coming in. We'd better make our way back to the house." Barnaby sighed as he started trudging back down the rocky mountain. The wind howled in his ears and burnt his lips as he whistled, trying to sound cheery for Jamie's sake, but Jamie just stalked past him, glaring stubbornly at the ground with as much anger as the thunder that was growing closer every minute.

Barnaby knew that the families couldn't keep living like this. Why should Jamie be kept from the real world? Jamie was only fifteen but acted like an adult in anybody's eyes; he deserved to be treated like one. Barnaby decided that he would talk to Harpreet, Jamie's mother, when the storm had blown over, because for the next hour she and Jeane, Barnaby's wife, would be occupied with emptying the buckets that would soon overflow from the rain included in the storms. It was a tiresome job as the inky- black rain fell steadily all day and night, increasing every hour. Harpreet had gone over the same conversation with Jamie before many times so it would not be fair to bring it up again when she was in such a state of exhaustion.

But there will never be a right time to tell her will there? Thought Barnaby as he neared the wooden house, eyeing the roof that had too many holes that couldn't be filled with what little resources the families possessed. Harpreet knows how dangerous it is getting involved with a human, and she would never allow her only son to be within even a mile of society, for she feared that she couldn't trust anyone anymore. Harpreet was going to need talking round, and if Jamie's growing iritation was any indication, fast.